Do take a good care of them! They are prone to GPU problems and you don't want that on your beloved machine!
Each of us took their own solution for that problem:
ajkula66 never turns the machine off and never moves it to reduce thermal cycling
I put a piece of thermal pad/sponge between the heatsink and the GPU die to direct the heat on the GPU onto the heatsink (and also reduces shock at the same time) (not suggested on A31 series because Pentium 4 generates a lot more heat than the Pentium III - M)

The work A31p was retired several months ago in favor of a W520 running W7. The screen was getting dimmer over the last couple of months and finally gave up. This unit had been schlepped to and from work for many years. Always powered down or hibernated every work day. Never developed the dreaded GPU problem. The home A31p was kept running 24/7 until a few months ago when the wife shut it down (without asking me). The next day it would not power up. I don't think the GPU went south; more like a general power issue. Being lazy, I simply replaced it with another A31p that was sitting on the shelf. The 'new' system continues to operate 24/7, with an admonishment to wifey NOT to disturb it; hey, it's a science experiment! It's running WinXPP and is extremely slow for even web surfing (Firefox, coupled with AVG is probably the main cause).

ajkula66 wrote:They are the best typewriter with an integrated screen on the planet, bar none.

I would take exception to that statement. I think the best typewriter with integrated screen is a 600X.

rkawakami wrote:Since this thread got a bump, I might as well throw my $0.02 in...

The work A31p was retired several months ago in favor of a W520 running W7. The screen was getting dimmer over the last couple of months and finally gave up. This unit had been schlepped to and from work for many years. Always powered down or hibernated every work day. Never developed the dreaded GPU problem. The home A31p was kept running 24/7 until a few months ago when the wife shut it down (without asking me). The next day it would not power up. I don't think the GPU went south; more like a general power issue. Being lazy, I simply replaced it with another A31p that was sitting on the shelf. The 'new' system continues to operate 24/7, with an admonishment to wifey NOT to disturb it; hey, it's a science experiment! It's running WinXPP and is extremely slow for even web surfing (Firefox, coupled with AVG is probably the main cause).

ajkula66 wrote:They are the best typewriter with an integrated screen on the planet, bar none.

I would take exception to that statement. I think the best typewriter with integrated screen is a 600X.

Hey, does the WheelWriter get any claim to fame. It has some chips inside, makes both keyboards feel like trash even though there excellent, and its monochrome screen yellows over centuries not years.

Haha, but the advantage of the A31p is that touching the lid doesnt totally wreck it. RUBBERIZED COATING!!!!

The next day it would not power up. I don't think the GPU went south; more like a general power issue. Being lazy, I simply replaced it with another A31p that was sitting on the shelf. The 'new' system continues to operate 24/7, with an admonishment to wifey NOT to disturb it; hey, it's a science experiment! It's running WinXPP and is extremely slow for even web surfing (Firefox, coupled with AVG is probably the main cause).

Unfortunately, I have noticed the same problem with almost all of my Pentium 4 - M machines (a Dell Inspiron and two motherboards of A31p) due to their high TDP in both the CPU and the chipset so that the components degrade faster. You should check where it went wrong, but the completely broken motherboard of my A31p seems like a southbridge issue due to the extreme abuse of the chips by Pentium 4 - M (as soon as it receives power either by plug in the AC or battery, the southbridge heats up to around 100C within 2 minutes and then disconnects power + cool down)

(1) I still have one Thinkpad A31P running 2Gb of memory and a Pentium IVM 2,5 Ghz (!) and it does boot up and run Windows 7 pro
(2) I did give away another Thinkpad A31P runing windows XP (perfectly installed! Someone intended to play older games on it, I do not know, whether he succeeded)

(3) In their time those machines were top of the pops,
I did start by spending irrational 20.000 DM on my first Laptop 1992/1993 (486DXCPU, 32MB Memory, 800MB HDD, 256 Colors TFT 10" display (AST Ascentia 910N, taken over shortly after by Samsung))
and then still about 6000 (+) DM on my first A31P end of the nineties, but
these Thinkpads (A31p) were the fastest and most versatile machines I could find those days. And they served me and my family (four of them, all upgraded to the top) for more then ten Years.
(4) Todays machines (hardware & firmware, Lenovos tendency to restrict Use) up to now do not convince me....

Today,
(1) naturally it is slow,
(2) It has a problem with batteries: It seems to have become uncapable of charging batteries, although reading them.
(3) FireGl (ATI-Graphics-chip) presents a problem, as it produces a bluescreen (atiduag.dll) from time to time. ("Older" ATI-drivers are said to help, up to now no secure remedy)

So, alltogether, I do start the machine from time to time to have its antiv up to scratch, but I do not use it. It is some kind of "Historic" element, as historic cars are looked at...

Mine is actually in the process of becoming a part of my home recording setup. Highly unlikely to go online ever again once I'm done downloading the required software.

To be fair it can still go online for it's pair of speakers is perfect for spotify. Yeah for A30 series you have to go with the older version as newer versions need SSE2, while A31 series are suggested to run the same version as later versions become unusably slow

I haven't been following this thread because I am not an A31p fan -- owned one only briefly -- but this week I had a surprising experience that is somewhat relevant. A while ago I inherited a pair of identical Dell OptiPlex GX620 minitowers at work, both with 3.2GHz Pentium D which was Pentium M's desktop counterpart (i.e. just a generation newer than the A31p), PC2-4200 RAM, and 7200rpm SATA hard drives. They had Windows 7 Enterprise from day 1 and were surprisingly usable. Last week one of them was replaced by a newer computer and no longer needed, prompting me to sell it. Legally, I couldn't sell it with Win 7, which had been installed using my institution's site license, so I replaced it with XP Pro for which the GX620 has a COA. After getting all XP updates, I installed Avast and Opera and was surprised that surfing the internet on that machine is much, much slower than on the other GX620, with identical hardware but running Win 7.

For the A31p, are internet browsers also faster in Windows 7 than in XP?

For the A31p, are internet browsers also faster in Windows 7 than in XP?

For OptiPlex GX620 you can have up to 4GB of RAM officially. (8GB of RAM may work too)
ThinkPad A31p can take 2GB RAM max (if you have the secondary RAM slot alive)
People say Windows XP is faster than Windows 7 (if both of them are debloated) have factors such as the amount of ram available, age (architecture & process), etc. However, where Windows 7 excels at is modern app support (newer plugins, newer browsers, better optimisation, etc.).
As for video playback, the GPU plays a huge role too. Even the iGPU of OptiPlex GX620 can play 720p YouTube videos just fine as long as you have the most optimised settings set (h264ify, etc), while A31p struggles in terms of that category due to a much lower bus speed, GPU incapable of handling h264/HTML5, weak CPU power, etc.
I would say if you put A31p in Windows 7, you lose some, and you gain some. Even though the losses may be slightly more than the gain, but it is still acceptable and isn't terribly slow either as long as you have 1GB RAM or more.
Overall I would say the browsing speed of Windows XP and Windows 7 are not much different in A3x series as long as you have enough RAM and keep everything optimised.

For the A31p, are internet browsers also faster in Windows 7 than in XP?

I haven't touched W7 with an A31p in years. Personally, if it were not for the requirements of the software that I'm about to slap on mine, I'd be sticking to W2K on it, but XP SP3 is the oldest supported option...

...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

For the A31p, are internet browsers also faster in Windows 7 than in XP?

I haven't touched W7 with an A31p in years. Personally, if it were not for the requirements of the software that I'm about to slap on mine, I'd be sticking to W2K on it, but XP SP3 is the oldest supported option...

I dont think an A31p is really useful for web browsing anymore. Thats just me. I would use an A31p to play old dos games. Floppy drive for somegames. CD drive for others. Minesweeper never looked so good on 15" of Pure IPS!

and no, it does NOT have the famous GPU issue, rather it has something weird.

Care to elaborate?

In other news, and in partial response to my old friend pianowizard's question: a set of circumstances had prompted me to install W7 32 Home on my A31p's spare HDD (Hitachi 100/7200) and that poor thing ran like a three-legged dog as far as browsing was concerned. At the end of the day, Pentium 4M is simply worthless for web purposes nowadays - IMO - and I don't think that I'll be taking the W7 route with this oldie ever again. Back to XP which I was never crazy about, but I can't fool the software that I'm intent on using into believing that W2K is XP so...it is what it is.

...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

and no, it does NOT have the famous GPU issue, rather it has something weird.

Care to elaborate?

Oops. Forgot to do that in the post (only did so in imgur).
Basically I received an A31p unit with a yellowed and pinked UXGA display and that motherboard which was described as freezing from time to time. The unit was sold to a forum member for $60 after replacing the motherboard with a cheap find of working A31p motherboard on ebay for only $30 and replaced the display with a working 14.1" SXGA+ one (I kept the cable to hook up another UXGA display on my A30p), while the defective motherboard remains. Dropped in a Pentium 4 1.6 from a Dell Inspiron and tested it recently, only to find out that the freezing was because of something consuming a lot of power/shorting and thus the overheating southbridge freezes the machine. So after trial and error with heatsink solutions, it finally settled down with a T42 short fan mounting on the southbridge with at least fan 3 speed. The problem is that the motherboard is still pretty useless - I remembered that it had an exposed USB port, and I accidentally plugged the AC adapter inside it and fried the USB controller with smoke coming out (even the USB devices on the dock won't be recognized yet all the fuses are 0Ω on the motherboard) , so I am stuck with a PCMCIA USB controller. Battery life is terrible on the motherboard - thanks to the southbridge overheating, even with the extra fan running on a 18650 battery cell. The motherboard refuses to charge the battery and will boot with 190 dead battery error if no battery is connected. The keyboard controller is semi-working too - with certain keys not registering on my personal A30 keyboard. Overall, lot of effort spent to make the motherboard usable.

In other news, and in partial response to my old friend pianowizard's question: a set of circumstances had prompted me to install W7 32 Home on my A31p's spare HDD (Hitachi 100/7200) and that poor thing ran like a three-legged dog as far as browsing was concerned. At the end of the day, Pentium 4M is simply worthless for web purposes nowadays - IMO - and I don't think that I'll be taking the W7 route with this oldie ever again. Back to XP which I was never crazy about, but I can't fool the software that I'm intent on using into believing that W2K is XP so...it is what it is.

Hmm. Did you use the correct video card driver and sound card driver? The sound card driver provided by Lenovo for Windows XP works terribly in Windows 7. Only the driver preincluded from Windows Vista works acceptably. For video card driver, the driver for Radeon 9000 works with the most optimal performance in Windows 7, though it is impossible to get SXGA+ resolution to work.
What internet connection did you use? What browser with what plugins did you use? What's the specs of your A31p?
Heavy meme websites and YouTube are the things you should forget about in that machine. Facebook is getting heavier and heavier day by day - 3 years ago I am able to run it on ThinkPad 770ED with Pentium II 266 just fine, now Pentium M 780 2.26Ghz struggles to keep up to eliminate input lag.

Hmm. Did you use the correct video card driver and sound card driver? The sound card driver provided by Lenovo for Windows XP works terribly in Windows 7. Only the driver preincluded from Windows Vista works acceptably. For video card driver, the driver for Radeon 9000 works with the most optimal performance in Windows 7, though it is impossible to get SXGA+ resolution to work.

Oh my...all the tweaked video drivers suck. The OS "sees" the card but still scores it at 1. I've promised myself many years ago not to go down that rabbit hole again and should've known better. Resolution is not an issue even with the native MS driver. Performance is.

What internet connection did you use?

60/6 cable directly into the LAN port.

What browser with what plugins did you use?

Pale Moon optimized the way I always use it.

What's the specs of your A31p?

P4M 2.0 and 2GB of RAM.

You can scrutinize the specs all day, and contemplate tweaking this that and the other things, the CPU simply can't handle today's web competently. That's all there is to it.

...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

Hmm. I'm wondering what's the failure rate of its CCFL bulb? Anyways I've replaced mine with another one from a crap 15" XGA display. I noticed it's original one is a thick glass one while the one I put in is plastic, does that matter a whole lot? Now for some reason after the bulb replacement I feel like the display is a bit more yellowed than before.

^
Two things:
1: bub is old and yellowish
2. bulb is set to a different color temperature.

Does the material of the finish of the bulb matter (plastic vs. glass)? And does where it came from matter (IPS panel vs. non-IPS panel)?
I guess I am just gonna solve that by a colour calibration in Windows.
And also I am wondering why the bulb fires up as the regular TFT inverter's brightness and then gradually fade into the IPS inverter's brightness

^
Two things:
1: bub is old and yellowish
2. bulb is set to a different color temperature.

Does the material of the finish of the bulb matter (plastic vs. glass)? And does where it came from matter (IPS panel vs. non-IPS panel)?
I guess I am just gonna solve that by a colour calibration in Windows.
And also I am wondering why the bulb fires up as the regular TFT inverter's brightness and then gradually fade into the IPS inverter's brightness

Simple AFAIK, the IPS inverter shoves alot more current through the smaller TFT Bulb. TFT allows more light through than IPS, therefore IPS Bulbs need more current:

Look at the CCFL Bulb Luminance curve vs. Temperature. The bulb is cold when it is fed current but as it warms up due to the increased current, it slowly fades to the IPS brightness because it just coincidentally matches the same brightness.

Um just asking does your picture comply with the forum rules cuz I don't remember?
Update: well the A31p story doesn't just end happily over there - later I accidentally shorted out inverter on the metal on the TV ports and I get no inverter LED and no backlight. This post below helped me - thank you./viewtopic.php?f=5&t=120941&p=780270#p781278https://1drv.ms/i/s!At7-rt1KJ7WviNBpfvBz8Vip2Y45hA
The ones marked red are the blown out ones - F8 is for the LED and F19 is for the backlight.
Then the story doesn't end there either. Later when I got those things replaced with some solder (too lazy to replace them with fuses on my dead T41p motherboard), the motherboard wouldn't even turn on. Later the smoke of burning components came out of the motherboard. That took me another day to figure out - in the hard way: I was basically tracking where in the motherboard was heating up and turned out it was actually due to a blown capacitor right beside the opposite side of the CPU socket and burned my hand with a mark at the size of that capacitor. Then I took out a capacitor sitting beside the CPU socket of the dead T41p that looks like it has the exact same dimensions and put it into the A31p motherboard - and now finally it is back working http://imgur.com/a/Lo658

Also, about my picture. Its <80KB, which in a 56K modem takes less than 1.5 seconds to load and its not very dimensions wise. It fits on a XGA monitor with no problem. It was already on someones server and it was convenient. If it was really so much of a big deal, I'm pretty sure that it would have been Mod-Edited. I'll change it regardless right now.

Rip. the problems don't stop there either. Now instead of southbridge overheating, it somehow transfered to the whole area of northbridge overheating, which explained why the capacitor gave up. Now I have put a piece of thermal-conductive, but not electrical-conductive alumium tape over that area to hopefully spread out the heat more evenly, instead of single pieces of components getting tortured. And now for some reason, one crash resulted in Windows 7 not booting anymore, the attempting repairs inside my Windows 7 recovery disc is attempting for like forever, which I am not sure at this point if it will do anything, though it is having constant hard drive activity. Like seriously at this point I don't want to do another reinstall of Windows 7... So tedious to only just have a A31p up and working, though having it up and running with barebone, and without the southbridge hassle enables me to utilise the super-cool, oversized DVD-ROM drive from my dead ThinkPad 770ED (the very first model to feature DVD-ROM drive and playback).

I just did a fresh install of the new Linux Debian Stretch distro AntiX 17 (on 128gb Plextor mSATA SSD) listened to a CD, watched a TV show from DVD, edited some text documents and pictures, and am doing some web stuff now...

Still a pleasure to work on a quality machine like this! It's dated but still great!